Thread by @BlueBloodsBlue

I don't like getting into politics on Twitter. I'm here for basketball, video games, and cartoons in that order. But there's a vote coming up on Aug 2nd and I'm in a position to provide what I think is a unique perspective on it and I guess it's my time to lose a few followers

Some things you should know about me:
1. I'm Catholic
2. I'm adopted
3. I'm a foster parent
4. I'm in the process of adopting out of the foster system
5. I'm pro-life
6. I will #voteNOAug2
So how can this all be? I'll try my best to lay it out

1. I'm Catholic. Abortion is against my religion. I've never procured or performed one for someone. My religion says I can't. My religion, however, doesn't compel me to vote to prevent someone else from doing so. Even if it did, so what?

This is America. I don't get to force my faith on others. A lot of folks bemoan that there's not enough religion in our politics, but they're assuming their faith would win out. Southern Baptist is the largest denomination in the US and Catholics aren't about to submit to them

And speaking as a Catholic, the Holy See is the last people you'd want running this country. You ever eat meat on a Friday? Skip church? Rub one out? Use a condom? Use IVF? Get divorced? All of this would be illegal if my church made the rules. Religion shouldn't guide the law

This is what that gets you:

https://twitter.com/natepentz/status/1543721260772900866?s=20&t=-7316_se39yl1-Y3qvwQcw

Over 80% of Catholics use prophylactic birth control even though the only things the church approves are spray and pray or the "rhythm method" aka have 8 kids method. And Catholics need abortions sometimes too:

https://twitter.com/LeahLibresco/status/1543947638755758081?s=20&t=-7316_se39yl1-Y3qvwQcw

2. I'm adopted. I was adopted post Roe.
"Aren't you glad your mother didn't abort you?"
Sure, but what's the counterfactual? It's not like I'd be bummed out if she had, right?
Adoption is often touted as the solution for unwanted pregnancies, but it really isn't that simple.

Like I said, I'm glad my mother gave me life and gave me up to my family, but it's not something she had a lot of choice in. She was an undergrad at the University of Nebraska in the 80s. She was from a deeply religious Sicilian-American family. Abortion wasn't really an option

Neither was keeping me. The man that got her pregnant was a grad student that she'd sparked a romance with. He was black. Her racist father wasn't about to let her keep a black man's child. It was put me up or lose her family. My entire life's trajectory began with racism

But it worked out for me. No family is perfect, but my parents have always loved an accepted me for who and what I am. Not every adoptive family is like that. Children aren't really blank slates. A lot of their personalities and behaviors are biologically informed.

Most adoption is infant adoption, but even if the baby you adopt has only ever known you, they're going to be their own person and likely a pretty different person than you are. There's a real dark side to that too. My youngest brother is an opioid addict. His mom had a meth

addiction. He was severely malnourished when he came to us. All the love; all the resources and generosity of our parents wasn't enough. He still fell prey to addiction. He was predisposed en utero. The second he got prescribed pain killers his path was set. We couldn't stop it

And there are plenty of adoptees whose families didn't work out as well or who endure existential trauma as a result. It's not hard to find adopted people who will say they'd rather have been aborted

Even when adoptions do work out, there simply aren't enough of them. Despite there being (estimated) over 1.2 million couples in the US awaiting adoption at any given time, there are still over 100k children awaiting adoption in the US to match them. Why are they not chosen?

Most hopeful adoptive families (hafs) want to adopt infants, but the average age of a child awaiting adoption is 8 years old. Kids who age past 10 while awaiting adoption are more likely to age out of the foster care system than be adopted unless they have very young siblings

Over 70% of hafs are white families, but only about 30-40% of available children are white and not everyone is willing to adopt cross racially/culturally. It may seem like a simple thing to do (just don't be racist, right?) but its actually quite demanding

My parents set out to adopt minority children. They felt they were up to the task. And for their troubles, they had to fight thru racism and bigotry directed at their kids from all corners. My paternal grandparents, also devout Sicilians from Nebraska, didn't let their grandkids

play in their front yard at first. They warned my father against adopting "some good time Charlie's baby." (If you don't know, that's a more old timey and polite way of using the N word). My grandma bathed my eldest bro in bleach to try and lighten his skin one time

They got better over time. They learned to accept and then love us for who we were, but it wasn't straightforward and simple, and that's only a taste of the difficulty we had within our family. I'll spare you details of what life in small town KS was like at times

But even when race and age aren't factors, there are simply very few children put up for adoption that don't have complicating factors. Not everyone will adopt someone with a disability or with FAS or narcotics exposures, etc. A million hafs, but not everyone gets adopted

3/4. I'm a foster parent in the process of adopting out of the system. Most of the 100k we know are awaiting adoption come from foster care. Private adoption stats aren't tracked so nobody really knows how many kids are put up and adopted privately annually

If you're planning on voting Yes and have never done foster care, I'd encourage you to skip the ballot and sign up. We need you. They need you. The foster care system is woefully underfunded, understaffed, and underserved

https://twitter.com/SemiSophrosyne/status/1542271793871949825?s=20&t=-7316_se39yl1-Y3qvwQcw

Nothing I've done in my life has been more eye opening than being a foster parent and I've only been at it a couple years. DCF/CPS is how we sweep kids under the rug when we're done using them to punish their parents. Most kids who wind up in care are their for being neglected

The number one cause of that neglect: untreated substance abuse issues. The US has been all to happy to fight a war on drugs and the bulk of foster kids are that war's refugees. "But it's the parents' fault. No one made them use." Yeah, that's true, but it's no so simple

I'd encourage everyone before voting Yes to go to a women's prison and talk to some of the mothers who lost their kids. Listen to them. Ask them when they had their first drink; their first joint. I'm not a straight edge by any means, but I was shocked.

So many of the parents who are TPR'd (lose their kids permanently) are there for the same reason my little brother is an opioid addict. They were set on that path before they really had a choice. The kids that I'm adopting are in the same boat as him. When they

were removed from their home, they tested positive for levels of meth higher than most adult users have. If they'd grown up in that home they'd almost certainly become users themselves only to have their kids TPR'd too. It's a cycle we all need to help break

That's not to say every TPR is a sob story. The hardest placement I had in my brief term doing foster was a girl who literally watched her mother beat her boyfriend's child to death right in front of her. That was a very taxing experience for me. Imagine being her every day

5/6. I'm pro-life. I will #voteNOAug2 Maybe that still doesn't make sense to you, but a Yes vote is not a pro-life vote. A vote of Yes does not "value them both". A 10 year old impregnated by her father and being told to think of it as "an opportunity" is not valuing them both

And if you think that 10 year old girl in Ohio is just a one in a million unfortunate soul, it happens more often than you might think:

https://twitter.com/Miriam2626/status/1543055400899067904?s=20&t=-7316_se39yl1-Y3qvwQcw

Total abortion bans have all sorts of unintended consequences. They're a bad idea if you're pro-life. I mean, Missouri did it. It's Mizzou dumb. Oncologists have already had to contend with their law to try and save the lives of pregnant cancer patients.

They've already had to release clarification on this confusing wording in Missouri:

https://twitter.com/donna_anonima_m/status/1540764491553845248?s=20&t=oIb0Z3q5a2bG3h6o0w7hOg

It's not pro-life to deny pregnant women unrelated healthcare:

https://twitter.com/Kelli_Gar/status/1541528985057853441?s=20&t=oIb0Z3q5a2bG3h6o0w7hOg

https://twitter.com/BeccaLizz/status/1542684777693814784?s=20&t=-7316_se39yl1-Y3qvwQcw

https://twitter.com/skeletalrad/status/1544154032364785664?s=20&t=-7316_se39yl1-Y3qvwQcw

The fear of a nationwide ban is already driving young men to consider vasectomies:

https://twitter.com/nypost/status/1542950740859256832?s=20&t=-7316_se39yl1-Y3qvwQcw

"No big deal. Vasectomies are reversable." They can only be reversed in about 50% of cases and the longer it's been since you were snipped, the less likey a reversal is to succeed. A lot of young men are going to find out they can't start families in their 30s cuz of this

And the girl I fostered who's mother committed a murder in front of her when she was 5? Be prepared for more of that. It's mostly poor people who get abortions and mostly poor people whose kids wind up in the system. Wealth hides a lot of sins in this country. Ask Epstein

It won't be an onslaught. It'll build slowly. But in 5 years a foster system that's already strained will begin to break, but it'll be 10 years before we're aware of the problem and a generation before they will might exist to do anything about it

You can't be pro-life if you are unwilling to consider what kind of lives you're bestowing upon people who literally never asked to be born. You can't be pro-life if you're unwilling to put in the work and care for those lives. You can't be pro-life and vote Yes

I'm pro-life. I will #voteNOAug2. You should too